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LIZ CLAIBORNE TO END COMMERCIAL TIE



Subject: LIZ CLAIBORNE TO END COMMERCIAL TIES TO MYANMAR

Cc: reg.burma@xxxxxxx

(th)
  By ANDREA ADELSON
  c.1994 N.Y. Times News Service
  
     Liz Claiborne Inc., one of the nation's largest apparel makers,
  has decided to stop making and buying apparel in Myanmar, formerly
  known as Burma, because of its authoritarian government.
     Liz Claiborne buys goods from 40 countries, and knits and woven
  apparel from Myanmar represented less than 1 percent of its volume,
  a company spokeswoman said. Its announcement would thus seem to be
  largely symbolic.
     Liz Claiborne does considerably more business with China, which
  has also been the subject of human rights complaints, but has no
  plans to examine its commitments there.
     Other American companies have withdrawn from Myanmar. Levi
  Strauss & Co. stopped buying clothes made there in 1992 after
  learning that the military junta owned an interest in the
  factories. Amoco Corp. pulled out last April, citing economic
  reasons.
     In a statement Friday, Jerome A. Chazen, Liz Claiborne's
  chairman, said: ``Though the facilities with which we work have
  complied with our strict human rights standards, we cannot support
  the activities of this country's current government.''
     The spokeswoman said Chazen was not available to take questions.
     The Liz Claiborne announcement could depress Myanmar's apparel
  industry, said Andrew Jannis, president of the Marketing Management
  Group, an apparel industry consultant.
     ``A lot of importing is about networking,'' he said. ``When a
  company like Claiborne abandons a location, it might have a very
  adverse affect on sourcing.''
     Myanmar, with 43 million people, is controlled by a government
  that seized power in 1988 and has a record of human rights abuses.
  The leader of the main opposition party, the Nobel Peace Prize
  laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, is under house arrest. The opposition
  party in exile, saying foreign investment props up the regime, has
  called for a trade boycott.
     About 10 American companies have invested $300 million in
  operations in Myanmar since 1988, said Kenneth A. Bertsch, an
  analyst at the Investor Responsibility Research Center.
     Pepsico Inc., which has a minority interest in a bottling
  operation in Myanmar, and Unocal Corp., which plans a $1 billion
  offshore pipeline, in the last few weeks have received shareholder
  resolutions aksing them to end their operations there, company
  officials said Friday.
     Most of the other American companies with ties to Myanmar may
  well receive related resolutions, said Sister Valerie Heinonen,
  program director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate
  Responsibility, a group of religious investors with $35 billion in
  assets. The companies include the Limited, Pier 1 Imports, Atlantic
  Richfield Co., Texaco and Halliburton Co., she said.
     Rather than an economic embargo, these resolutions ask companies
  to disclose the extent of their operations in Myanmar and how they
  intend to respond to human rights violations there, she said.